Grace Potter’s ‘Lady Vagabond’ is my Theme Song This Summer

Rock singer Grace Potter is the Janis Joplin of my generation, the bluesy belter and gravely soothsayer. But what I love best about her isn’t simply the fiery snarls or high-pitched squeals, but the shapeshifting quality of her music. She can go from rock-pop siren (“Paris Ooh La La”) to raw and emotional crooner (“Release”), while wielding a guitar or pounding on a piano.

Yet on one of her most recent single, “Lady Vagabond” (the sixth one off her 2023 album, Mother Road) she truly manages to surprise. The outlaw-style anthem is an absolute masterpiece on every level, and easily cracks into my list of top-ten Grace Potter favorites.

First, it’s a total “bad girl summer” type of song, with our narrator taking the form of the renegade, barnstorming woman who steals hearts and dollars in the wake of her travels. With its percussive backdrop that mimics horses galloping across the wild, wild west, “Lady Vagabond” warns us — “You can call me/but I won’t come/I’m your Lady Vagabond!”

“Vagabond” also takes me back to one of my favorite vintage films — The Good, the Bad and The Ugly (1966) — and the music of Italian composer Ennio Morricone. The film’s soundtrack brings together a cool, complex mix of instruments that we now associate with Spaghetti Westerns — electric guitar, soprano recorder, ocarina, chimes, electric guitar, trumpets, and whistling. Listening to “Lady Vagabond” while driving down the highway, I can see Grace Potter now in the movie’s climactic scene, a three-way standoff in a cemetery with the most intense buildup to the anti-hero’s next big move.

[SEE RELATED: ‘COUNTRY GIRL’ RISSI PALMER, ON TOURING, THRIVING, AND STAYING RESILIENT]

Finally (and most important), “Lady Vagabond” is aspirational — a song I connect with so deeply to my core even as I write this in the safety of a suburban café. How much I long for a fun, dangerous adventure — and to be a dangerously cool woman!  

But there’s still hope for me yet. Grace is a mother of a little one, too, just like me and so many other rockmommies. She knows the longing I feel to crank it up and hit the road, create a bit mischief, and move on, collecting stories to tell around a campfire, or while armed with an acoustic guitar.

Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.